


i belong with you

by Crykea



Category: Original Work
Genre: Disabled Character, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Phantom Limb Pain, Phantom pain, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28034010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crykea/pseuds/Crykea
Summary: Heather is woken up from a dead sleep because she has an itch on the back of her hand. This quickly escalates.
Relationships: Heather/Sidna | Obsidian
Kudos: 1





	i belong with you

**Author's Note:**

> i LOVE these wlws here they r again

Heather was, for once, sleeping peacefully. Her room was delightfully cool with the breeze that was making its way through her open bedroom window, but it wasn’t cold enough to make her shiver. Sidna was pasted against Heather’s back holding her tightly. The woman was like a hot water bottle with how much body heat she generated, hence the open window. One of her smaller dogs was curled up in the space between the women’s knees and kicking slightly in his sleep. 

It wasn’t often that Heather was actually given the opportunity to have an uninterrupted sleep so it was quite annoying when she was slowly awoken in the middle of the night. The room was dark save for the dim moonlight filtering in through the glass of the window. The dull red of the alarm clock blinked steadily from the nightstand on Sidna’s side of the bed casting a very slight tinge onto the wall Heather faced. Sidna sighed in her sleep, a puff of warm air against the back of Heather’s neck where her partner’s face was buried. At first, Heather wasn’t quite sure what woke her up. Usually, her sleep was broken by nightmares or Sidna/dog/superhero related reasons, but not this time.

It was then that Heather realized the wakefulness was caused by the persistent itching on the back of her hand. Annoying. The one night she’s actually getting sleep and she gets woken up because she’s  _ itchy _ ? Like fuck. She grumbled quietly, trying not to disturb Sidna or Ranger (who was yipping in his sleep now, lost in a dream of his own). She took her hand off of Sidna’s arm and reached down to her hand to scratch only to freeze when her hand only found the sheets underneath her. Ah. Fuck. So it was one of those nights. Stupid fucking brain playing tricks on her. You’d think that having lost her arm five years ago would’ve meant that her brain had gotten used to the fact.

In fact, Heather hadn’t actually experienced anything like this in quite a while-- before she’d met Sidna at least. She scratched the bedding underneath her, rolling her eyes as she tried to trick her brain into thinking it was flesh under her blunt nails instead of linen. Stubbornly, the itch only grew harder to ignore, more persistent as it started up a thin twinge of pain in her nonexistent fingertips. If she wasn’t currently held in a death grip by her partner behind her, she would’ve made her way to another room so that she could deal with this without waking up the equally-tired superhero. Maybe she would even have had some Advil. Pain killers didn’t really help but sometimes they convinced her brain, like sugar pills, that they were s _ upposed  _ to help. Only sometimes, though, which was irritating.

Instead, Heather simply leaned further back into her partner as her breath became slightly ragged. Her remaining hand came to her stump to massage it in case it would help. It was the strangest mind game. She knew her hand was holding the end of her arm, but the pain still somehow was coming from just beyond that. Quickly, what started as a twinge of pain in her fingertips turned into a shooting pain that went up and down like a rubber band through her veins. She bit out a gasp and squeezed her eyes shut. Hopefully, this wouldn’t last long. Ranger must have woken up because suddenly her face was being licked. She opened her eyes to look at the dog in front of her, opening her arms for him to curl up in a circle in her arms. The fur she buried her fingers in was course and a bit dusty. She’d have to convince Sidna to help bathe some of the dogs sometime soon.

Ranger looked up at her before resting his head in the crook of her shoulder and sighing. Her hand trembled in Ranger’s fur. Any number of things could’ve caused this, but pinpointing one was a bit hard with the hazy anxiety that was covering her brain. It wasn’t until she felt someone running fingers through her hair that she realized Sidna was awake. She squinted her good eye up at her partner in the dark of the room taking in the way Sidna was propped up on one arm and murmuring something to Heather as she played with her hair. She probably thought Heather was having a nightmare.

A pinprick of pain came from where her ring finger should have been but wasn’t, making Heather bite out a groan. It felt like her arm was bent in a really uncomfortable position underneath the dog, but she knew logically that was ridiculous seeing as there was no arm to be positioned uncomfortably. It was all echoes of the way her arm had been bent after the car accident. Stupid fucking brain and stupid fucking body. This was so frustrating.

She took her hand from Ranger’s fur, bring it instead to Sidna’s cheek to turn her face toward hers. 

“I’m awake,” Heather whispered, hating the breathiness in her tone, “Just in pain. It’s okay.”

“Not okay.” Sidna levelled Heather with a look.

“Okay, not okay, but nothing to do about it so…”

“Did you get hurt? Where is it coming from? I’m sure we can help you somehow.” Sidna’s hands fluttered over Heather wherever she could reach now that she knew Heather was in pain, not simply in the middle of a nightmare.

“Ah, no, not that kind. I do mean it when I say there’s nothing we can do about it.” She grit her teeth as a whimper forced itself out of her mouth. Sidna looked down at her, perplexed.

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t, ah-- the pain isn’t actually real.” Sidna’s brow only furrowed more. Heather rolled her eyes, “My right hand hurts.”

“But you--? Your right…?”

“Sidna, I do not have a right hand, or a right arm for that matter, to be in pain right now.” Heather buried her fingers back in Ranger’s fur. He was helping a lot with grounding her, and her doctor had always said that warming up the limb might help the pain stop so two birds one stone really. Finally, recognition dawned on her partner’s face, quickly followed by anxiety which was immediately schooled from her expression. She winced as another shot of pain came from her wrist. God, this sucked. “Sorry for waking you up.” She tacked onto the end of her wince.

“Hey, no, this is the kind of thing you wake me up for, okay?”

“Okay.” Heather breathed out steadily.

“How can I help? Is this something you can take pain meds for?” Sidna said, already shifting into business mode. It made Heather hide her face in her dog’s neck to keep her small laugh to herself.

“Sometimes pain meds help, but mostly I think I just need to calm down. Relax or whatever. Could be caused by stress or not sleeping enough or maybe I was sleeping weirdly, who knows really. Ranger’s helping. Keeping it warm helps. Can you just--” Heather moved her hand again to Sidna’s cheek bring her down for a kiss which she couldn’t help but wince into. It was helping to have Ranger lay on her arm. He wasn’t reacting to any movement which helped convince her that her nonexistent fingers were  _ not _ in fact twitching under his fur. 

Sidna repositioned the two of them slightly so that Ranger was now pressing Heather back against Sidna’s chest. Sidna fingers continued to run soothingly through Heather’s hair as she kept a steady stream of one-sided conversation going to distract Heather. It took a while, but eventually, the pain faded back into an itch and then, after a few more moments, nothing at all. Her breath still came out heavily, but she’d stopped twitching against Sidna’s chest and was able to breathe out shakily and shut her eyes tight.

“Thank you.” She said eventually, moving to pet Ranger’s head where it was still against her neck. The mutt leaned into the head scritches, tail wagging where it was lying on Heather’s thighs. Sidna pushed Heather’s fringe out of the way to press a kiss against Heather’s temple.

“Of course. Any time. Is this a… new thing?” Sidna guessed.

“No, not really. I haven’t had it in a long time though. Since before you started staying here at least. I think I’m just stressed. And tired.”

“I’m prescribing you to stop coming out on night watches with me every time I go out, then,” Sidna said, a slightly joking tone to her voice even though she was serious.

“Hey, no. If you get to worry about me, I get to worry about you.”

“You can worry about me from home.”

“I’d rather worry about you from a location that would actually be useful if you get hurt, but thanks. You’ve been good at not treating me like I’m fragile, so don’t start now.” Heather glared.

“Ay, calm. I just don’t like to see you hurting.”

“So you know how I feel.” Heather raised an eyebrow.

“... Listen,” Sidna sighed, raking her fingers through Heather’s hair. “I get it. We need to figure something out, though, because if night watch is causing you actual pain…” her voice trailed off. 

“I’m okay, Sidna.” Heather toned down the bite in her voice to something a bit more gentle, cupping Sidna’s cheek. “I’m okay. I’m not hurt, and if it becomes an actual issue we can talk then, but for now, I’m coming with you whether you like it or not. What else would you do without your handy dandy sidekick?” Sidna laughed lightly.

“You’re not my sidekick, you’re my girlfriend who happens to know first aid and doesn’t like it when I go out alone at night.”

“Basically a sidekick.” Heather grinned.

“Not a sidekick.”

“Basically, though.”

Sidna laughed again, smiling against Heather’s lips as she closed the space between them, jumping back when Ranger’s cold nose pressed against her bare neck.

“Okay, I get your point. Next time if you’re in pain can you wake me up, though?”

“Alright, I can do that.” Heather relented.

“Thank you.” Sidna smiled lovingly at her. “But we should try to get back to bed. We have to pick up Norah from my parent’s house tomorrow morning, remember.”

“I remember” Heather yawned. Being in pain was tiring.

The pair fell back asleep entwined together with Ranger still pressed against Heather’s chest.

**Author's Note:**

> find me online @crykea


End file.
